DISABLED

WILFRED OWEN (18 March 1893 - 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was
one of the leading poets of the First World War. He was noted for his anger at the cruelty and waste of
war and his pity for its victim. The poem “Disabled” is written about a soldier who has been injured in
the war. It poignantly portrays the physical and psychological trauma suffered by a young man enlisted
to fight for Britain in World War I. The poem focuses on an injured soldier in the aftermath of that
very same war. Still quite young, the man feels old and depends on others for virtually everything,
having lost his legs and parts of his arms in battle. Reflecting on his decision to go to war, the poem
shows the horror of the conflict and suggests that many young men didn't know what they were getting
themselves into when they first enlisted. The poem was first published in 1920; Owen, however, didn't
live to see this, as he was killed in action one week before the war ended.

The title “Disabled” is a metonym which replaces the wholeness of his identity. The opening pronoun
“he” shows that this soldier is anonymous in many ways. This could be Wilfred Owen’s way of
universalising the experience of many others and how they are treated and considered by the society
for which they have lost everything.

Verse one reveals that he is confined to a wheelchair and lives in a hospital. There is a very ugly
atmosphere of misery and tragedy in this verse, created by the colours and sounds mentioned. He sits
in his wheelchair, waiting for the evening to fall. The use of the gerund ‘waiting for dark’ suggests a
sense of hopelessness and despair. This has connotations that there is no light, so there is no hope, and
all he has left to do now is to wait for death so that his suffering will come to an end. Darkness
suggests he wants to hide his maimed body in the dark. Furthermore, he wants to sleep eternally in the
darkness; die and escape his life of unhappiness. The caesuras used in the first stanza give the effect of
a long wait for the night. The dark is a metaphor for death, Owen describes this man’s life as so useless
and futile that death seems like a relief from the monotony of life. He shivers in his horrible grey
hospital uniform, which -like him - doesn't have any legs and stops at the elbow. “He sat in a wheeled
chair, waiting for dark”, “And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,” The verb ‘shivered’ and the
sibilants add a sense of vulnerability and weakness to the man. The word ‘ghastly’ echoes ‘ghostly’
and conveys that he is lacking life. The colour "grey" is mentioned too, which also creates a sad,
miserable and bleak atmosphere and reflects the monotonous, boring life he has.

Owen shocks the reader with the word ‘legless.’ It is a brutal truth. The young man is objectified as the
poet describes his suit as ‘sewn short at elbow.’ The reader is forced to picture his injuries. The colour
grey is very often used as imagery for death in literature. The fact that he has no legs and one arm
show how dependent he is on others, this dehumanises his character. The young man’s situation is
contrasted with the boys playing. The anaphora of ‘voices’ suggest they prey on his mind. The use of
auditory imagery as he hears the voices ‘saddening like a hymn’ and the simile reinforces the idea of
death-in-life. He perceives it as a funeral dirge.

The poet uses contrast to make the created atmosphere even stronger by describing the happy life of
boys playing outside. "Voices of play and pleasures after day" is a very sad phrase, as the man is not
able to do anything by himself, yet is forced to listen to voices of playing children until the night time
comes and kids have to go home to their families, where they are safe. This also contrasts between
their physical exertion and his inability to move. Personification is also found in the last line of verse
one, "Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him". Sleep is personified as his mother,

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protecting him from his terrible life; it helps him escape reality. Sleep and darkness are therefore
connected - offering him refuge.

The second stanza keeps a steady tempo to conjure up feelings of sympathy and regret as the young
soldier reflects on his past. The first three lines of verse two are a contrast to verse one. They contrast
with the mood of darkness as the first three lines are focused on light or happiness; ‘glow-lamps’,
‘gay’ and ‘lovelier’. Furthermore, the word ‘swing’ in the first three lines of verse two contrasts with
the word ‘sat’ in verse one. The word ‘sat’ is motionless and lifeless, when compared to ‘swing’
which represents movement and life. Therefore, verse one shows the lifelessness of the soldier after
the war and the first three lines of verse two reflect the soldier's vibrancy before the war. Also the word
‘budded’ is used in the first three lines of verse two, which symbolises new life and not lifelessness as
suggested in verse one. Furthermore, the last four lines of verse two contrast with the first three lines
of verse two, because they are about the soldier's unhappiness.

In the second stanza, words like "gay" are used to create a mood that is joyful, which represents the
man’s past life, before the injury. It begins with colourful images of the town and completely
juxtaposes the earlier darkness. The phrase 'About this time Town used to swing so gay' drifts into
narrative form with 'About this time' and 'used to' which create a distance between the reader and the
disabled man, as well as distancing him from his past and friends. The capitalisation of ‘Town’
suggests that the phenomenon of naive enlistment and men returning physically and mentally
disfigured was widespread in war-time Britain.

Contrast is also related to the irony in the poem. Firstly, before his injury, all the girls loved him and
were fighting to get their hands on him. The alliteration of “girls glanced” emphasises the excitement
of flirtation that the man used to experience, making his current state even more harrowing. The use of
the word “glance” gives the girl a very playful image. He remembers how before he had become
disabled, he had been a renowned football player and was proud of the blood cut on his leg which had
resulted from a match, and how the crowd had carried him on their shoulders celebrating how
excellent he was. It was after this match when he was drunk that he asked to join the army just to
appear manly to the ladies as someone suggested he would look dashing in a uniform. He went as far
as lying about his age and as a result, he joined the war. He had thought only of the distant lands he
would travel to.

One of the main reasons he went to war was to ‘please his Meg.’ But after returning with his injury,
girls no longer seem interested. ‘Now he will never feel again how slim girls waists are, or how
warm their subtle hands, all of them touch him like some queer disease.’ The irony is used in the
second stanza. Before he went to war he ‘liked a blood smear down his leg’ as if it made him feel
strong and powerful. He liked to show his scars off, so people thought he was brave. Now his real
wounds leave him disabled. The young man is unable to forget about his past. Although realistically it
has happened a year ago, he feels that time has passed him by and that he has lost years of his life due
to the war. The injury seems to be a waste and there is a suggestion that it has been a careless action.
Owen here implies that becoming wounded in combat is not honourable but rather a foolish one.

As the “air grew dim”, the happy tone is brought to an abrupt end. An end-stop marks a violent shift
as he is suddenly brought back to his tragic reality as he talks of how “he threw away his knees”. The
litotes “threw away his knees” sounds careless, which Owen links to his carelessness and naivety
when enlisting. Owen creates a sense of awareness in the reader that the young man feels a certain
amount of guilt and self-acknowledgement in the role he has played in the loss of his legs. Now he
regrets “throwing” away from his knees, the ideas and inspirations behind joining the war were not as
patriotic or loyal as they should have been. His former lovers, who may have motivated him to enlist,
have rejected him.
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In the phrase 'All of them touch him like some queer disease’, a simile is used to suggest how girls
now touch him gently and don't know how to be around him. The imagery adds power to his present
physical repulsiveness and emphasises the speed at which his youth plus his beauty was drained out of
him. Owen uses the term 'queer' to show that the soldier's losses have made his body alien. These
injuries have also removed his social masculinity. Women don’t respect his service as he thought they
would but instead treat him like an unnatural, inhumane ‘queer disease’. There is strength in the
simile which presents the changing attitudes as the women now avoid him.

In the third stanza, we see an instant return to reality as the soldier regrets his actions. In the next
stanza, Owen reiterates the format of the previous stanza by giving the reader a glimpse of the soldier’s
normal life, before becoming an amputee, when his youth and vitality were admired by an artist, the
man was once considered physically attractive. The word ‘silly’ suggests a general absurdity during
this time, an atmosphere which motivated him to enlist. ‘Now’ acts as a temporal marker taking the
reader back to the present and definitively putting an end to his former happier life. In the phrase
'Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry' a visual image of pouring blood is used as the
reader visualises the soldier pouring his life away in front of him. The man has not only lost his youth
in the war but has ultimately lost his entire life. A man whose veins have run dry is as a man that
essentially has no life left in his body, a man that is as good as dead. The soldier expresses anger and
bitterness as he did it to himself as he had fallen for propaganda, his vanity and for girls.

Verse three begins with the image of an artist who wanted to paint the soldier's face because it looked
so young before he went to war, ‘There was an artist silly for his face.’ It then moves on to the
present, ‘Now, he is old.’ This means the war has made the soldier feel old and it made him lose his
youthful vitality. Another point that indicated the soldier has lost his youth is ‘He's lost his colour.’
Furthermore, this could reflect the blood he lost in the war. ‘Poured it down shell-holes till the veins
ran dry’ also links with the fact that he ‘poured’ his vitality away in the war; ‘half his lifetime
lapsed in the hot race’ also reflects this. The last line of verse three ‘And leap of purple spurted
from his thigh’ is also symbolic of purple, as the colour of mourning, which suggests the soldier
mourns for the loss of his limbs, youth and vitality.

In the fourth stanza, the soldier looks back on what he had. In the phrase 'One time he likes a blood-
smear down his leg, After the matches, carried shoulder-high' the soldier reflects on the innocent
fun of football matches and his appeal to vanity after scoring a goal. The soldier reflects on the reasons
why he joined stating 'Someone had said he'd look a god in kilts,' we gain knowledge that the
soldier is from Scotland and that he joined as he thought of military uniform appealed to his vanity as
well as 'to please his Meg' and 'giddy jilts.' We understand how the boy was pressured and expected
to join and be encouraged into it by the girls. The young men had been undone by vanity, pride and the
cheering of girls.

In the next stanza, the present continuous verb “smiling” shows even though they knew he is
underage, they selected him. The man was too young to enlist, the authorities were ‘smiling’ as they
wrote down his false age, and almost sadistically as they know war won’t be what he’s imagined.
Owen paints an evil picture of these authorities, gleeful in ruining yet more youth and innocence. The
proper noun “Germans, Austria’s” refers to the enemy countries. He wasn’t aware of the politics of
war-especially in relation to German and Austria. Even though he knew about the war, he did not think
very deeply about it and thus never really thought things true. This illustrates how unprepared many
were for the war. As Owen stated, they did not fear “fear” yet. The word ‘Fear’ is capitalised to
personify the Germans and stresses the terror of war. “Jewelled hilts” is an ornamental dagger which
Scottish soldiers would put on the top of their stockings. The feeling of pride hints at another
motivation for him to enlist, he thought it would offer him the same sense of camaraderie he got from

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football matches. He was cheered out to war in a wave of excitement. He also thinks about the money
paid for being a soldier in a war which makes him not only a hero but also a rich one.

Some were happy that he was home, but not as much as those cheered him off. The collective noun
“Crowds” shows some people didn’t appreciate his sacrifice. A “solemn man” is tied to religion so
could be a priest and is the only person there for him, ‘fruits’ could be linked to the fruits of the man’s
labour and his sacrifice. Owen is reminding us that war hasn’t just shattered him physically but
psychologically too. The time “now” shows the temporal shift and the repetition of the conjunction
“And” shows how monotonous and repetitive his life is.

Verse five is very short in contrast to the other verses in the poem. It is a short verse to represent what
his life had been reduced to after the war. His many dreams and expectations in the long verse four are
now reduced in verse five to reality. He got no cheers when he came back from the war. Throughout
the poem, the man is troubled by the world's indifference toward him and the ungratefulness that is
shown towards him after he returns home from the war. This is apparent when he describes how only
some cheered him home, but not as many as would cheer a goal that he scores in a football game. The
phrase 'Only a solemn man who brought him fruits, Thanked him; and then inquired about his
soul' suggests the ingratitude that the man feels toward the people of the country that he helped to
protect is one of the resounding themes of the poem. Only a ‘solemn man’, possibly a vicar, brought
him fruit as thanks. The word ‘Thanked’ is in italics, which could show how meaningless the thanks
is. It also suggests he received very little thanks.

In the final stanza, in the lines, 'Tonight he noticed how the women's eyes, Passed from him to the
strong men that were whole,’ we see how the disabled soldier is socially disabled as well as
physically and how he is not treated the same way before when he was 'whole'. The use of the word
'whole' is significant to how the disabled boy is feeling as the man has lost confidence in his strength
and vitality. The poem "Disabled" ends with a double question, "Why don't they come and put him
into bed? Why don't they come?" The repetition of the question "Why don't they come?" shows
that the soldier is in the end frustrated. He is eagerly waiting to be put to bed. This may as well mean
that he is angry and also waiting to meet his death because he knows he won't face these miseries in
the 'after-life'. This idea is also supported by the first line of the poem, ‘He sat in a wheeled chair,
waiting for dark.’ The soldier has to rely on others for help even for the simplest of things like being
put into bed. Even though he is mentally able, his physical condition forbids him from doing what he
wants. Repetition is used to express his feelings of ingratitude toward the people of the country he
helped. His life is at a close, having led a small life.

The structure of the stanzas in the poem echoes the structure of the man's life. Although the beginning
of the poem is generally uniformed and organised, the middle of the poem begins to lose its order. This
could possibly have been done to imitate the way in which the war had affected the soldiers,
complicating their life and causing disorder. However, it could also be implied that the disordered
manner of the poem could have been to give the poem a disturbing and unsettling quality - this may
have made the readers feel pity where elements of bitterness and regret were evident.

Owen has left us with a very personal portrayal of one man's experience and outcome due to World
War One. At the end of the poem the reader finally realizes that the man is not waiting for the end of
the day, but the end of his life, he has nothing to live for now. He can only envy other men as he waits
for 'dark' for them to 'come'. Owen wrote in opposition to the war and yet supported the men he
served with his poetry, by bringing the discomfort and horror of the war to the eyes of the public.